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jennybearyay t1_jckg4p4 wrote

What is there is a nuclear reactor meltdown on the moon? Or an explosion that damages the moon? How will that affect the Earth?

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TechNickL t1_jckiy4y wrote

Realistically, it won't.

a) reactor meltdowns don't cause nuclear explosions like a bomb does. They just get radiation all over the place. Chernobyl was a pressure explosion, and it was an exceptionally badly built and operated reactor.

b) the amount of radiation that the sun puts out that hits the earth is orders of magnitude greater than anything man-made could ever create.

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jennybearyay t1_jckqcvj wrote

Thanks for the reply. Not sure why my question was downvoted. I'm not a scientist and was curious lol.

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TechNickL t1_jcl2b95 wrote

On reddit, you're not allowed to ask questions if too many people think the answer is obvious.

Score is meaningless anyway.

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jennybearyay t1_jcl9cie wrote

Yeah, I don't care about the karma. It's just interesting what people will downvote. I don't know much about nuclear science so I don't see how the answer is obvious enough to get mad someone asked 😂

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TechNickL t1_jcldie9 wrote

Don't think of it as mad, think of it as passive-aggressive ego padding lol

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na_gooyin t1_jckkvvc wrote

Following up on point A, let’s say hypothetically the reactor does have a meltdown and we have another Chernobyl disaster. How will we suppress a reactor meltdown were it to happen in space, away from the equipment and resources we have down here on earth? How will it affect future missions to the moon?

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NotShey t1_jcknk77 wrote

It won't. The particular structure the reactor is housed in will be ruined, but um... it's the moon, it's already a mildly radioactive wasteland. If they can, likely stick it in the bottom of a crater a couple miles from the main base, so even if the whole thing melts down, the base will be fine.

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jormungandrsjig t1_jcknp7i wrote

> Following up on point A, let’s say hypothetically the reactor does have a meltdown and we have another Chernobyl disaster. How will we suppress a reactor meltdown were it to happen in space, away from the equipment and resources we have down here on earth? How will it affect future missions to the moon?

Use an oversized spatula and flip it off the surface into interstellar space.

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whtml t1_jckhon8 wrote

that's like asking what spitting into the ocean will do to the sea levels

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jennybearyay t1_jckqfj7 wrote

I'm not really smart when it comes to physics and outer space. What was the harm in asking?

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DampTowlette11 t1_jcm1dw4 wrote

No harm. Ignore the people who are giving you shit.

Back to fun space facts, have you ever heard of time dilation? If you were to accelerate to an insane speed in order to reach another planet, you would be perceiving time at a slower rate than the rest of us. There is a scifi book where soldiers go across the galaxy, fighta brief war, then return to an earth that has seen centuries pass during their trip.

Space is expanding at an ever increasing speed. At some point, we may not be able to see other galaxies as the space between galaxies is expanding faster than the light can travel to reach us.

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iqisoverrated t1_jcm63d9 wrote

Not at all. Space is a pretty perfect application for nuclear because theres no environment to pollute.

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kamekaze1024 t1_jckhkea wrote

Massive destruction to the moon could affect tides worldwide

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NotShey t1_jckntd7 wrote

Fucking what? Lmao. You could detonate 1000 of the largest nuclear bombs ever built by man at once and it wouldn't effect the mass or orbit of the moon enough to have any effect on earth. A single small reactor sure as shit wouldn't do anything.

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Shavethatmonkey t1_jckuvyq wrote

What would destroy the moon? You guys have a weird idea of what you think a small reactor can do. We've had dozens of reactor failures on earth, none came close to destroying the planet.

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the size of planets vs the size of nuclear explosions.

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